[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 142 (Wednesday, September 30, 2015)]
[House]
[Page H6713]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DESERVE RESPONSIBLE GOVERNING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Quigley) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has 
described the Republican House and Senate as a ``responsible right-of-
center governing majority.'' But how responsible is it that we are 
about to start a new fiscal year with no plan for how to fund our 
government? We are hours away from a shutdown, and Congress has yet to 
even begin budget negotiations.
  Instead of doing the job the American people sent us here to do, we 
are celebrating that maybe we have found a way to keep the government 
open for 2 months--2 months. That is what we consider a bipartisan 
victory these days. Now, we may prevent a shutdown today, but let's be 
clear. Doing the bare minimum to keep the government from closing is 
not responsible. It is hardly governing at all.
  The American people sent us here to take on the big issues and to get 
things done. They want us to fight for infrastructure, for education, 
for jobs, not just to keep the lights on. We are letting partisan games 
get in the way of governing, and it is not only hurting our government, 
it is hurting our constituents.
  Unreliable, unpredictable short-term funding prevents the government 
from operating effectively and efficiently, and it costs taxpayers 
money. We are short-term funding, and we are ignoring changes in our 
policy priorities and restricting agencies from shifting dollars around 
to meet emerging challenges.
  Defense officials recently warned that forcing the Pentagon to 
operate on a short-term CR would hurt our national security by 
restricting our ability to respond to new threats. Moreover, a CR 
severely limits the government's ability to plan ahead or start new 
projects. That is because there is no guarantee the money will be there 
in 2 months.
  How do agencies manage this uncertainty? By freezing hiring and 
training, shortening terms for grants and contracts, forgoing 
maintenance, and delaying scheduled pay raises. In addition, agencies 
have to waste countless resources preparing for contingency plans for 
shutdowns that may or may not happen.
  Republicans like to talk about running government more like a 
business. Is this how they would run a business? What successful 
business budgets 2 months at a time?
  What we need and what Democrats have been demanding is for 
Republicans to sit down with us and craft a long-term, bipartisan 
budget so we can finally get rid of the harmful, across-the-board 
spending cuts of sequestration so we can reprioritize and restore 
funding in areas like education, R&D, infrastructure, and national 
security in a fiscally responsible way so we can plan for the future.
  The best way to do that is to return to regular order. That means 
offering pro-growth budget resolutions that address our long-term 
fiscal challenges in a responsible way. No partisan austerity plans 
that keep the indiscriminate and harmful sequestration in place. It 
also means bringing appropriation bills to the floor free of 
ideological policy riders. There is a time and place to debate 
controversial issues. That is why we have authorizing committees.
  I am confident that, as long as we can put partisan politics aside 
and ignore obstructionist demands, we can get back to passing budgets 
under regular order, not a partisan budget that fails to address the 
sequester, not a CR that operates to keep agencies from planning more 
than 2 months out, and definitely not the threat of another shutdown.
  My hope is with the new Republican leadership will come a renewed 
effort to bring back long-term budgeting under regular order. That is 
the kind of responsible government the American people expect of us. 
That is the kind of responsible governing that the American people 
deserve.

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